Sky Force Reloaded?

[CanbeeShinobi2]

What do you guys think about this game, I have tried to give it a shot several times but I could not spend more than 10 minutes playing it, despite the great presentation and the awesome graphics. It seems that this game suffers from the same problem most modern action games have, slow action that appeals more to the casual audience.

Seeing the cheer amount of praises and positive feedback this game gets, I am wondering if I am the only one with such opinion...

[dmk1198]

Not on here u ain't mate
Most would agree
Designed for mobiles
Boring grind system


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[SPM]

This game appeals mainly to RPG fans. So... casuals who prefer grinding over getting good
Seriously, the grind fest is real! And if you play it enough, you unlock harder versions of each stage, which you need to grind for upgrades to tackle in a balance way.
I played it a bit on android and can't stand it. On consoles I guess it's a bit better since there are no microtransactions. But the core gameplay is designed around grinding to fit the phone market model.

But there are lots of people who like it, so... who knows!

[Ixmucane2]

Worse than grinding itself, there's the problem of binary scoring: later levels are unlocked by accumulating enough medals for killing all enemies, collecting all humans, or finishing the level unharmed, so you either triumph by getting a medal or a little mistake makes the whole run only useful for grinding.

Also egregious: complete lack of weapon variety and weapon-based strategy (it isn't possible to choose or pickup mutually exclusive weapons or downgrade something to upgrade something else) and the tightest, most unforgiving and boring memorization-based level design I've ever struggled with.

[SPM]

Worse than grinding itself (...) a little mistake makes the whole run only useful for grinding.

(...) tightest, most unforgiving and boring memorization-based level design I've ever struggled with.

Those are good points as well! This game is so tedious!

[CanbeeShinobi2]

Glad I am not the only one... While automatic upgrades and new abilities work for me, i have always hated games with inventories and such, shmup or no shmup.

Another great looking game that I could not stand is Sine Mora, but I guess you guys find this one great.

[el_rika]

It's crap. Nothing going for it.

[CStarFlare]

Another great looking game that I could not stand is Sine Mora, but I guess you guys find this one great.

Hold on there.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65254

[XoPachi]

I played about an hour of it because it just kept getting recommended to me.
Terrible. I'd almost rather play Sine Mora. Boring art style. Garbage music too. And just the slowest shit ever.

[MachineAres 1CC]

Agreed with everyone here. Unfortunately, I forced myself to actually finish all the achievements for this AND Sky Force Anniversary and grind everything out (though a lot of it was done AFK with a turbo controller, cause fuck that) but it's just not really a good game by any criteria. Even after you grind out all the upgrades, some of the advanced versions of later stages are just unbearably slow and the hitboxes are absolute trash to the max, so I definitely recommend staying away.

[CanbeeShinobi2]

I forced myself to actually finish all the achievements for this AND Sky Force Anniversary and grind everything out

I feel sorry for you, it must have been painful lol

[MachineAres 1CC]

I forced myself to actually finish all the achievements for this AND Sky Force Anniversary and grind everything out

I feel sorry for you, it must have been painful lol

It absolutely was, and I'll never touch one of those games again on any platform

[StudioMudprints]

FWIW, I did my part when I collabed with Metal Jesus Rocks on that switch shmups video he did some time ago. I did manage to talk him down on Sky Force in general. Sure, we went with Ikaruga (a fucking terrible choice given what Nicalis turned out to be all about) but Sky force, no shit, was going to be #1 in his early draft. It ended up going to #9 after some discussion about a lot of the things y'all have already said here.

[SPM]

FWIW, I did my part when I collabed with Metal Jesus Rocks on that switch shmups video he did some time ago. I did manage to talk him down on Sky Force in general. Sure, we went with Ikaruga (a fucking terrible choice given what Nicalis turned out to be all about) but Sky force, no shit, was going to be #1 in his early draft. It ended up going to #9 after some discussion about a lot of the things y'all have already said here.

Oh my... Thanks Ser!

Whenever a list of top shmups appears, if the game is not there you'll see many comments claiming it should be at least an honorable mention, because it's the best shmup they've played and have put the most hours into...

[StudioMudprints]

Whenever a list of top shmups appears, if the game is not there you'll see many comments claiming it should be at least an honorable mention, because it's the best shmup they've played and have put the most hours into...

If a shmup requires a long grind, its total playtime doesn't really count. I won't hesitate to ding a game's length category if extensive grinding is required for progress.

Like, I put more far more time into Ketsui in its various version between Extra, Death Label and Deathtiny than a lot of people put into Sky Force, despite any one game (not counting second loops) being like "5.5" stages long, kinda. But to get that second loop? That's what takes a much longer time to figure out and optimize, but it can also be done straight off the bat with skill. It's a far more worthwhile time, and not a matter of "sink X-hours in, get X-money, overpower the shit out of my ship and win by holding one button."

[MachineAres 1CC]

If a shmup requires a long grind, its total playtime doesn't really count. I won't hesitate to ding a game's length category if extensive grinding is required for progress.

This. I was just compiling info for my 1CC list earlier today and just completely excluded any of those that require grinding/upgrading and don't have a straight run/arcade mode to actually 1CC.